There's Someone Outside The Window
by icarly1969
Summary: There's someone outside the window, Nico says. He says it with so much conviction that it was hard not to believe him. The problem, though, is that their apartment was on the seventh floor.
1. Ghost Story

_In this story, assume that they live in a modern day apartment on the seventh floor. Nico is five, Bianca is eleven and Hades is a mortal parent who stayed with Maria. Of course, I probably should be focusing more on my other story, which is long term, but this idea was stuck in my head and refused to leave, so here it is._

**Part I: Ghost Story**

When her brother came into existence, Bianca was six and she had liked him. She thought he was adorable. Then, in their little household, everything became about him and her parents were paying more attention to him. He started becoming an annoyance.

So, she worked harder, got better grades and became top in her school, skipping levels and winning competitions. She filled their cabinets with her achievements and her record was glowing. She did everything she could, but it was still always about Nico.

One day, something changed, though. Somehow, Nico became dumb and stopped talking to people. He would spend his time staring at walls or empty space, smiling occasionally and crying for no reason sometimes.

At first, Bianca had been glad, thinking that her parents would finally notice her and her achievements. Then, she realised that her parents paid even more attention to Nico than ever. They stopped having time for her. Every time Mother scoops him up, he would smile at Bianca over her shoulders, if she was in the room. Bitterly, Bianca conceded defeat.

She hated her little brother even more. He stole her parents' affections from her.

There was one other reason she hated him, though.

Every evening, when she was studying, he would stand beside her with his blanket in his left hand, suckling his right thumb and swaying side to side slowly. She had locked him out once, before, but he had started crying and her parents sided with him. They always side with him.

It was creepy but she could have tolerated it. If not for the fact that without fail, some time before she finished her work, he would remove his thumb from his mouth, point at the window and say, "Sis, there is someone outside the window."

It was the only sentence he would say after he became dumb. She was also the only one who had heard him say it.

The first few times, she had gotten up and checked. There was never anyone there. Every time, she would turn around to tell him no one was there just to realise that he was not there either.

When she gets back to her work, after a while, he would be there beside her, thumb in his mouth and smiling at her again. It did not matter if she had closed the door, he would always appear beside her silently.

After the first few times, she just ignored him whenever he told her there was someone outside the window. She even made it a habit to close the window and draw the curtains. It never deterred him.

* * *

After a while, it became normal. However, things changed the day her classmates, Clarisse and Katie, came over to her house to do a project with her.

Father took Nico somewhere else so they could have the room to themselves and work undisturbed. Halfway through, Katie suddenly asked the other two if they believed in ghosts.

Clarisse and Bianca had looked at her as if she was insane, prompting her to tell them why she would ask a question like this. She revealed that earlier that week, she had found this article stating that children below six could see what everyone else could not.

In that particular case, a man had killed his daughter brutally earlier on and no one suspected him. His daughter had a twin brother who went dumb when she died. He never asked where his twin was, but every time he saw his father since her death, he would point at the space above his father's left shoulder and say, "Dad, there is someone on your shoulder."

That was the only sentence he would say and his father was the only one who got to hear it.

Because the man's daughter choose to haunt him after her death. Her ghost would always sit on his left shoulder, the way she used to do before she died.

Bianca could barely suppress a shudder when Katie finished her tale. Clarisse had pursed her lips and told Katie to stop reading things like that. Bianca tuned them out a little, though, as she drew the parallel between her little brother and the boy in the story. What would that make her, though? If Nico was the boy who could see ghosts, who was the father and who was the ghost?


	2. An Empty Balcony

_Thanks to Our Mismatched Socks and ____hermione-and-annabeth_ for reviewing! This chapter is really short, but the next chapter should be able to make up for it.

**Part II: An Empty Balcony**

After they left, Bianca stared at the pile of work on her table. She could be the father in the story, sure, but there was no one she could think of who would fit the criteria for the ghost. She had never killed anyone, nor had anyone died because of her. Well, not anyone that she remember or knew of.

Nico said that the ghost was outside the window. Could it be that the ghost was tied to the house and not her? Then, the reason she was the only one Nico tells about the ghost was because this was her room now. Satisfied with this conclusion, she eyed her workload and decided that it would benefit her that night to just go to bed first. The work could wait.

The next evening, when Nico told her that there was someone outside the window, she put aside her work and went to the window, drawing the curtains open. Rationally, she knew there could not be anyone there. There was still the small tinge of disappointment when she was that there was no one there. A chill passed through her, though, when she realised that at eleven, she was above six, so there was a very high chance that there was, in fact, a ghost there. She just would not be able to see, or even sense, its existence. As she stared at her faint reflection in the window glass, she wondered whether it was for the better or for the worse that she could not see anyone.

She unlatched the window and leant out. The air was bitingly cold and the neighbourhood was quiet, like it always was at this time in the afternoon. A shadow flitted pass in the corner of her vision. She turned in the direction, but there was nothing there.

Her heart pounded a little faster. Was that really the ghost? If so, then was it trying to show her something? There was only an empty balcony there, though. The sliding glass door leading to it was ajar. Her eyes narrowed a little. That was Nico's balcony.

It used to be hers, until her parents realised that Nico became a lot quieter when he was allowed to stay there, with or without supervision. They had her switch rooms with her brother and she gave it up without a fuss. They never listened to her, so arguing was futile. Besides, she never went onto the balcony much. The thought was what counts, though, and Nico took it away, the way he took everything away from her. Sometimes, Bianca had bitterly wished he would do something stupid like climb onto the balcony railings and then fall to his death.

She turned around. Unlike before, Nico was still standing there, smiling. Completely unsettled now, she moved a little awkwardly back to her seat and resolved to ignore him as she buried herself in the work.


	3. Routine

**PART III: Routine**

When Nico told her that there was someone outside the window, she hurriedly went to the window to check as if she feared that she might not be able to catch the elusive spirit. As it was the night before, she could not see anyone. Turning back, she could see her room door closing. Suspicion immediately assaulted her and she walked over to the door, opening it. She looked to her left. Nico's bedroom door was open. She went there and looked into the room.

Nico was at the balcony. He disappeared off to the left side of the balcony and she suddenly understood what was going on. She turned and walked back to her room stiffly, despising her little brother even more as she resolved never to believe in silly things like ghosts again.

'So that's your game, isn't it? To get my attention and pity. You won't get it. You're such a liar,' Bianca thought hatefully. She should never have listened to Katie and believed her.

Back at her desk, she went through her workload. After a while, Nico was back beside her again.

She pretended he did not exist.

* * *

A few days later, she was making herself a cup of milo when her mother entered the kitchen. She got up and was about to leave when she was halted by a hand on her arm. "Can you talk to your little brother a little more? He's getting a little lonely."

Bianca looked at her mother. She looked hopeful, and a little sad. There was something in her eyes Bianca could not read. She forced a smile as she promised to talk to her brother.

It was always about Nico.

She went back to her room. Nico was still there. She continued doing her work.

Predictably, when she was about halfway done, Nico pointed at the window and said, "Sis, there's someone outside the window."

She did not let him finish. When he started talking, the well of hatred she kept buried was uncovered and suddenly she found herself roaring at him, calling him a liar and telling him to stop pretending that there was someone out there. She told him to get out.

Nico just stood there, staring at her wide-eyed.

Bianca pointed at the door. "Get out," she growled.

Nico looked at the floor before looking at her and he repeated, "Sis - "

She did not let him finish when she hauled him to the door and shoved him out. Slamming the door in his face felt so satisfying, in a way she had never felt before.

She went to open the window, because finally, Nico was no longer in her room and there was no longer a need for her to keep the window closed. She stopped at the window. Nico was there, on the other side of the window, standing on to the ledge. When he saw her, he smiled.

"Sis, there is someone outside the window," she read off his lips. It was the only sentence he would try to say, anyway.

Bianca's first reaction was panic. When she told him to get out, she did not mean for him to interpret it this way. So she slid open the window as she yelled, "What are you thinking, why are you out there, get back in here!"

Nico stopped smiling and put his thumb back into his mouth, as is his default reaction when he does not understand something or was startled.

That idiot. He forgot that he was on the other side of the window, that he would have to hold on if he wanted to stand on the ledge.

Bianca was in a state of shock as she watched him fall and land. The last light of that day was enough for her to see him hit the ground, for her to see the liquid mess spread. She was shocked, numb. She remembered.

It wasn't the first time Nico had fallen down from the window ledge.


	4. The Last Time

**PART IV: The Last Time**

They cleaned up the blood and the body and it was as if there was never anything special there. She, however, would never be able to forget the image forever imprinted in her mind, the way she now remembers what had happened the last time.

* * *

Nico was a few months older than three, and he tailed her everywhere faithfully. He tried to stick up for her on the playground, against the people who says bad things about her.

He made her a laughing stock.

So whenever he wanted to play, she would say no. She would tell him to go and mind his own business, to leave her alone. She did everything she could, shutting him out of her room, telling him off, leaving him with her parents, even locking him in his room.

One time, they were in her room together. She was doing her work when he pointed at the window and told her, "Sis, there's someone outside the window."

She looked at him. He had said it with so much conviction that it was hard not to believe him. The problem, though, was that their apartment was on the seventh floor. So there should not be anyone outside the window.

She still went to check. As she thought, there was nothing there. The frustration of constantly having him around coupled with the fact that her parents seemed to like him better led to her turning around and telling Nico to _just stop lying and stop bothering her_. He had looked at her, wide-eyed. Then he left. At that point, they were in his room. The one that now belongs to her.

Thinking that she finally has peace, she went back to doing what she was doing before. A shout from somewhere outside startled her, causing her to rush to the window.

Just to realise that the shout had startled Nico, too. Nico, who had climbed from the balcony in her room to the window ledge to prove to her that yes, there was someone outside the window. Nico, who was currently plummeting to the ground and there was _nothing she could do about it._

* * *

She had forced herself to forget. She told herself that it was never happened, that Nico had never done that, he had never fallen, that every time she had seen him outside the window was just a hallucination of something that happened in a dream. She managed to believe what she told herself.

Until now.

_Wow, 263 views? Thanks guys! There's just one more chapter to go._


	5. After

**PART V: After**

Her parents stopped being able to sleep peacefully at night. Not because of Nico, as he was no longer around. This time, they were staying up, worrying over her.

Every evening, when she was almost done with her work for the day, she fell into the habit of doing what Nico used to do, to appease her guilt. She would stand up, point at the window and say, "Sis, there is someone outside the window." After which she would go to his room and climb to her window ledge from the balcony there.

She could not stop herself, and nothing her parents said could stop her. Their solution was to board up both of the window. Unable to go out through the window anymore, Bianca would spend her time staring blankly at the boards. Every time, she would almost see Nico, just beyond the board, looking at her, smiling and saying with his eyes, "Do you believe me now? There is someone outside the window!"

Her parents took to sending her to a psychiatrist. He was a young man, probably fresh out of med school, and his name was Apollo. His consultation room was on the third floor.

Apollo told her that Nico never hated her, that he still loved her, even after he had fallen the first time. He said that the reason Nico does what he does was because he was trying to make up for the one time he had lied, to tell her that yes, there was someone out there, that he was telling the truth this time. He just wanted her to believe him and love him. He told her that it was not her fault, that she should not blame herself.

"There's someone outside the window," she said woodenly, pointing behind him. Apollo froze, the blinding, brilliant smile still on his face, as he turned around.

* * *

It was autumn and there was always a few workers around to trim the branches of the trees. They do this to make sure the long branches do not accidentally get caught in the electrical wires and cause an electrical shortage in the area.

~The End~

AN: Thank you to all who had read, reviewed, favourited and followed! I hope you like the ending, and I have no plans for a sequel.


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